So many people told me before Emry turned three that “three is the new two”. And while Emry certainly seemed more difficult at three than two, I’m not totally convinced. Because Ethan is certainly two…and then some!
I don’t know if it’s just being a boy. I don’t know if it’s because Emry’s response to his annoying her is to push. Or maybe it’s just a stage. But whatever it is, my little guy has suddenly become the playground bully.
I take some comfort in the fact that Ethan does not appear to suffer from “little man syndrome”. Although now over two-years old, he is the size of an 18-month old. Plus he’s just very slight in build. But it doesn’t seem to bother him. For no reason at all at the play area on Monday, he came up behind a girl his size but probably at least six months younger and simply shoved her. So, he had to apologize and we had to have a talk about not pushing – especially girls! Apparently this little chat went in one ear and out the other two days later he did it again at the Chick-fil-a play area. But that wasn’t even the worse of it. Five minutes later, he pushed a boy probably his age but a good head taller right to the ground. For playing with what he wanted to play with. The little boy didn’t seem bothered by it, but I was. Stubborn in his opinion that he had a right to that play thing, it took me several minutes to get an apology out of Ethan. And several more to scold him more than once over his behavior.
Sigh. No mother wants the playground bully for a child.
Meanwhile, Emry quite alarmed me the other night while we were in the store. I don’t know why I didn’t see it earlier that evening when she was twirling in the mirror of the fitting room in her new Minnie Mouse swimsuit, but the light wasn’t great in that store. At the next store, I came around the corner of an aisle and saw her at a different angle – with a black eye!
Now Emry does bruise easily, but a wound like that would have brought her to tears. I searched my mind for a recent tumble that would cause the side of left eye to bruise up and over onto the eyelid. I could come up with only one, but I couldn’t figure out how she had hit her eye in that particular tumble. Worse, why I had I not noticed it before? But then I wondered…and asked.
“Emry, have you been in my eye make up?”
She looked confused, shook her head and then said, “Maybe Ethan spilled it on me.”
That made no sense. Even though Ethan is usually the culprit in 95% of Emry’s escapades. Besides, I was still trying to figure out where she would have hurt herself, and how I could have missed it, and did it hurt? Plus I was trying to check out in the store. By the time we got home, though, I was pretty sure I knew the answer. So, I grabbed a wet cloth, wiped and…sure enough, off came the black eye! Emry had been in my mascara.
Emry does always want to put on makeup with me the one day a week I put it on (Sundays). She loves sparkling things, and being pretty, and stuff for her hair, and now – at not even four – she is preparing for a career as a makeup artist.
But hopefully I made it clear she’s not to train for her future with my makeup.
My future chess masters.
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